Launch BBC News: Studio B

[Keith]

No surprise but some of the newspapers have started reporting the supposed cost of the Studio B revamp, with figures ranging from £10m to £15m though nothing officially confirmed by the BBC. The articles do seem to overlook the fact that B had been sitting effectively mothballed for about 2 years, due to the previous set requiring (multiple) camera operators.

Also, if this new set remains in place for nearly a decade as the sets in C-E have then the reported cost is probably good value for money. Being the largest NBH studio I'd imagine that the cost of upgrading the other studios is likely to be less (per studio).

[Newsroom]

No surprise but some of the newspapers have started reporting the supposed cost of the Studio B revamp, with figures ranging from £10m to £15m though nothing officially confirmed by the BBC.  The articles do seem to overlook the fact that B had been sitting effectively mothballed for about 2 years, due to the previous set requiring (multiple) camera operators.

Also, if this new set remains in place for nearly a decade as the sets in C-E have then the reported cost is probably good value for money.  Being the largest NBH studio I'd imagine that the cost of upgrading the other studios is likely to be less (per studio).

And naturally it's the same tripe covering the nonsense. Political rubbish is what it is.

[Stuart]

And naturally it's the same tripe covering the nonsense. Political rubbish is what it is.

Of course it is the same message from the usual media sources, who never miss an opportunity for a bit of 'BBC-bashing'.

However, rather than accepting the reality that studios need updating to reflect the latest technology - they are playing on the optics that Davie recently announced the intention of closing two linear channels.  That message might play well with some.

[London Lite]

Private Eye's scope on their reported £15m revamp of Studio B is that Jonathan Munro is basically dreadful.

[DTV]

£10-15m is a lot though for one set. Are we sure this figure isn't for the entire set replacement programme, because if not I do think that BBC-bashing might (for once) be warranted if that figure is anywhere near accurate. Knowing how much has been quoted for previous rebrands and things like election sets, that is simply not a reasonable amount of money to spend on a single set.

[Qwerty123]

They've long considered the 10 on the Sunday an extension of the weekend brand (ever since the 10 launched actually).  It's usually had the more senior presenters on it - not Huw but the likes of Fiona, Clive and Mishal, rarely seen on a Saturday shift.  The news has often rated well on Sundays for both the BBC and ITV hence they generally get more senior faces than the Saturday.

Indeed, I think that part of the original promise of moving the News to 10 O'Clock was that the late news would be at the same time six-nights-a-week. And, in the last few years, there definitely seems to have been a push to start the Saturday late bulletin at 22:00 as often as possible. It is increasingly common to see the late news at 10 every day of the week, though, as you say, the Saturday bulletin has clearly not yet been promoted to a top-tier bulletin as the Sunday bulletin seems to have.

The timing of the Saturday bulletin is dictated by MotD for most of the year rather than any actual desire that the bulletin is at 10 7 days a week. Whenever there is no football for whatever reason it is extremely unusual for the news to be broadcast at 22:00.

[Markymark]

£10-15m is a lot though for one set. Are we sure this figure isn't for the entire set replacement programme, because if not I do think that BBC-bashing might (for once) be warranted if that figure is anywhere near accurate. Knowing how much has been quoted for previous rebrands and things like election sets, that is simply not a reasonable amount of money to spend on a single set.

It also depends what equipment you define as 'studio equipment' and what is 'set equipment'.

The robotic camera systems in my book are studio equipment, integrated into the set.

The screens are arguably part of the set, but they won't be millions of quid, they'll be a few hundred thousand.

[DTV]

It also depends what equipment you define as 'studio equipment' and what is 'set equipment'.

The robotic camera systems in my book are studio equipment, integrated into the set.

The screens are arguably part of the set, but they won't be millions of quid, they'll be a few hundred thousand.

I'm sorry, but even then this just isn’t a reasonable amount of money to spend on a room where somebody reads an autocue and occasionally stands in front of some infographics. Especially not when the previous studio tech was only a decade old and still in line with current broadcasting standards, with the set itself only a few new displays and a polish away from being as-good-as-new. And please, dear god, tell me that this money hasn't primarily been spaffed on those ridiculous cameras.

More broadly, to put £10-15m into perspective, BBC Radio 6 Music’s annual budget is £12m. The combined budget of BBC’s Radio 4 Extra, Radio 5 Live Sports Extra and Asian Network is £13m. This is roughly half the budget of a CBeebies or BBC Four-level channel. BBC One dramas typically come in at under £1m per hour episode. This is more than the entire cost of the 1997 BBC rebrand – idents, signage and all – even adjusted for inflation. In fact, most staggeringly, the upper £15m sum is roughly 5% of what the BBC sold the entirety of Television Centre (and its valuable inner London land) for.

Even accounting for costs of broadcasting tech, this would be an unreasonable amount of money for arguably unnecessarily upgrading a single news studio if the BBC were in good times. It is an unjustifiable and borderline disgusting amount of money to be spending when you are cutting hundreds of jobs. I’m all for new news sets and do indeed quite like the new set, but a 1999-style set-up would still be perfectly adequate for a national news programme and would be a fraction of the cost.

[AJ]

I'd be surprised if the overall cost was in the tens of millions.

One thing to be considered is that, regardless of cost, it's an investment that'll be around for a decade or longer now (based on when the last set was introduced). There are likely some other background upgrades that will have taken place to futureproof it (4K perhaps, ability to be used for an Election programme without additional bells and whistles?). Some of the technology introduced will also have been done so as a cost cutting measure (fewer gallery heads etc).

It's easy to splash a huge number in a headline to grab clicks. Reality is that the cost will likely be lower than is being reported, and is more nuanced than just saying "BBC SPAFFS £10MIL ON A TOUCHSCREEN".

[Markymark]

It also depends what equipment you define as 'studio equipment' and what is 'set equipment'.



The robotic camera systems in my book are studio equipment, integrated into the set.



The screens are arguably part of the set, but they won't be millions of quid, they'll be a few hundred thousand.

I'm sorry, but even then this just isn’t a reasonable amount of money to spend on a room where somebody reads an autocue and occasionally stands in front of some infographics. 

I have no idea how the 10-15 Million figure is arrived at, or whether it's even true. All I can tell you, is screens of that size are not 'millions'

[RhysJR]

[Newsroom]

[Keith]

[natashajacobs]

[DTV]

I have no idea how the 10-15 Million figure is arrived at, or whether it's even true. All I can tell you, is screens of that size are not 'millions'

I'm well aware of this and how much broadcast displays cost, hence why I wasn't solely referring to the screens. No need to talk at me like I'm twelve.

One thing to be considered is that, regardless of cost, it's an investment that'll be around for a decade or longer now (based on when the last set was introduced). There are likely some other background upgrades that will have taken place to futureproof it (4K perhaps, ability to be used for an Election programme without additional bells and whistles?). Some of the technology introduced will also have been done so as a cost cutting measure (fewer gallery heads etc).

Sure, I understand that some of these costs will have been done in the name of longer term cost-cutting, but it's still a lot of money even if exaggerated - especially compared to the numbers quoted in a similar tabloid manner for previous studio upgrades.

It goes onto mention about other development relating to controlling the cameras via automation. This presumably means if these cameras are used in other studios money won't need to be spend again on that development work.

So having read that interview it suggests that quite a bit the rumoured cost was actually spent on development. One would hope that much of this development could then be used in other studio upgrades, with minimal additional cost.

But is any of this development necessary. New Broadcasting House already has three automated or semi-automated camera systems that all work perfectly well (as well as not being ridiculously obtrusive). This seems like wasting a load of money to fix a problem that didn't exist. If they have a problem with the Furios, then what about Shotokus - which they already use in A and D (with Shotoku heads being used in the old B). Not just are they both tried-and-tested and available off the shelf, but Shotoku fully robotic peds offer more versatility than these cameras.